


when gravity's a palm pushing down on your head

by aiineslin



Category: Disco Elysium
Genre: Gen, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 12:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21476077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiineslin/pseuds/aiineslin
Summary: sometimes, the Lady spoke to him.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 153





	when gravity's a palm pushing down on your head

**Author's Note:**

> im only on thursday and im still working on getting the church restored so kim and harry can get their dance on
> 
> translated into chinese by dubhespark thank u my dude <333  
https://moyuspark.lofter.com/post/31c54719_1c8aea1d2

He was four when the city first spoke to him.

She was the whirl of crushed plastic tare and crumpled brochures being carried by the wind to the drains, a crackling whisper of a voice that prickled at the edge of his consciousness.

She said: “_Those kids are gonna whoop your ass_.”

-

And they did. They whooped his ass.

-

When he went home with a bruised eye, bruised knees and a set of bruised knuckles, Matron sat him down and attended to his wounds with pursed lips and pinched eyebrows. Those eyebrows got a lot more pinched when he said, “Matron Lee, what does whoop your ass mean?”

She said, “Ass is a bad word. Where did you hear that from?”

Kim fidgeted a little under her stare. “A lady.”

“What lady,” said Matron. Her tone said a lot about what she thought of older women who went around saying “whoop your ass” in the earshot of children.

“The lady in the gutters and the tare,” said Kim, and Matron went silent and still and her lips thinned into the narrowest Kim had ever seen them before.

-

The second time the city spoke to Kim was when he was thirteen.

He was up to his elbows in the metallic guts of a motorbike, accompanied by Speedfreaks FM on his headphones.

She was a gorgeous skeleton of chipped paint and peeling leather, held together by a prayer and good mechanic work that kept her alive longer than she should have been. Matron’s husband had taken her home from the junkheap; a piece of garbage written off for good and had passed her on to Kim. He had spent the summer out on the sidewalk, restoring her battered bones back to glory.

(Nobody had touched her. The Seolite neighbourhood watched out for their own.) 

Machines were easy; they spoke to him under his hands, and they responded well to his ministrations. The machinery booklets he worked with were clear and simple to work with – he understood them in a way he did _not _and never would understand Revacholian literature.

_Hey kid._

He recognised the voice.

She sounded different this time; she was the hiss and pop of radio airwaves, a scream of bare wheels on tarmac.

_Get out of the way._

He stood as if on automatic, and got out of the way.

Moments later, an electric scooter and its rider buried themselves into the lamppost beside him. A wheel spun languidly in the air.

He stared at the heap of machine and man.

And then he went into the house, and called an ambulance.

-

He told Matron about this when he was seventeen.

“So the City talks to you,” said Matron.

“Sometimes,” said Kim. “When she wants to talk to me.”

They were in the kitchen, making dinner for the younger kids. Matron’s knife flashed as they talked, dicing vegetables into little slivers. She nodded, an un-smoked cigarette dangling from her lips.

“Sounds like her.”

Kim looked up from the pot he was supervising.

“You’ve heard her?”

“When she wants to talk to me, yes,” said Matron drily, and she took her cigarette from her lips, rolling it between her fingertips. There were bite marks chewed into the tip. Matron looked at the ceiling lamp above her. “She last spoke to me in ’07. Told me to hide in the basement when the soldiers came through.”

All was quiet for a moment, save for Lilly Dupre’s mournful voice belling over the radio.

Matron put her cigarette back into her mouth.

“Don’t worry about it, Kim. She’s a fickle-minded woman.”

-

Kim was twenty-two.

His boyfriend had broken up with him two hours ago, after he had given Kim a birthday cupcake and a declaration that while he adored Kim, he really needed some romance and excitement in his life and Kim was… distinctly not romantic, you know? And definitely not exciting. No way.

He was being very romantic right now, the way Paulie liked. He was hunched up under the pouring rain on the rooftop, his plaid shirt sticking to his ribcage, rainwater distorting the world through his glasses. He had tried to light a cigarette and smoke sexily in the storm but the rain just kept putting his cigarette out, so Kim had given up two sodden cigarettes in.

The protagonists in the soppy radio shows Paulie liked always did such things. Somehow, the spark of a creative and wonderful and exciting idea to win back their love would pop into their heads when they did such things.

Kim felt no spark.

He just felt very cold and very miserable. He was also certain that the pack of cigarettes he had bought earlier were now ruined beyond recognition, thus wasting a few reals that he could barely afford.

_Love would do you in,_ she said – the metallic snap of scissors cutting roses, twang of badly tuned guitar strings sounding out tentatively under a shuttered window.

“I’m not going to kill myself,” said Kim.

_I know, sweetheart. _

She sounded like Matron. That somehow made things worse.

“I’m trying to be more romantic. And exciting.”

_Mm-hmm._

He fell silent.

In the night, the high-pitched wail of a siren coming to life. White, burning headlights set into Coupris Forties whirling around corners, hard on the tail of a Falayette SER89. Kim stood up, moved closer to the edge, where he could get a better view of the streets.

More Forties had appeared, skidding into his vision, boxing in the nondescript car. Small dark figures exited the Forties. A loudhailer boomed out, drowning the storm in its aggrieved, cracking roar. 

**“_GET OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP GREGORY ANGEVINE YOU FUCKIN ASSHOLE” _**

_Now,_ said the City, a hot whisper of burnt rubber smoking into his ear. _Isn’t that _exciting?

-

It was easy enough to track down Harrier Du Bois. It seemed that it was next to impossible for the man to go anywhere without leaving a destructive trail.

It was, however, distinctly difficult to _meet_ the fabled lieutenant double-yefreitor.

The first few times Kim had tried to introduce himself, the Lieutenant had simply barrelled past him, eyes fixed on the karaoke stage and the bottles lined up in rows behind the bartender. Human voices didn’t appear to pierce whatever fog the lieutenant double-yefreitor had inflicted on himself. 

Today was the third day.

The Lieutenant was standing at the bottom of the staircase, his head swivelling left and right.

This far, Kim cannot make out his expression. But there was something in the set of the lieutenant double-yefreitor’s shoulders, some purpose to his walk that had been missing in the days prior.

_There he is_, Revachol said - the soft sigh of snow, the dolorous chime of a church bell. She sounded a little wistful, a little forlorn – the most human Kim had heard her in all his years. _Take care of him._

“Wait,” the sharp exclamation slipped out of him before he could catch himself, but the lieutenant double-yefreitor was making a beeline to him, and Kim’s hand was out before he could stop himself – because that was what you did when you meet a fellow cop –

“I don’t really know my name.”

In the distance, the clear tinkle of windbells, Revachol laughing. 


End file.
